] A new Internet worm emerged today that is designed to
] seek out and fix any computer that remains vulnerable to
] "Blaster," the worm that attacked more than 500,000
] computers worldwide last week.

'Good' Worm Fixes Infected Computers (TechNews.com)

] Working with experts at the Lawrence Livermore National
] Laboratory, the FBI traced trails of a broader
] reconnaissance. A forensic summary of the investigation,
] prepared in the Defense Department, said the bureau found
] "multiple casings of sites" nationwide. Routed through
] telecommunications switches in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia
] and Pakistan, the visitors studied emergency telephone
] systems, electrical generation and transmission, water
] storage and distribution, nuclear power plants and gas
] facilities.

] "We were underestimating the amount of attention [al
] Qaeda was] paying to the Internet," said Roger Cressey,
] a longtime counterterrorism official who became chief of
] staff of the President's Critical Infrastructure
] Protection Board in October. "Now we know they see it as
] a potential attack vehicle. Al Qaeda spent more time
] mapping our vulnerabilities in cyberspace than we
] previously thought. An attack is a question of when,
] not if."

] What they do know is that "Red Teams" of mock intruders
] from the Energy Department's four national laboratories
] have devised what one government document listed as
] "eight scenarios for SCADA attack on an electrical power
] grid" -- and all of them work. Eighteen such exercises
] have been conducted to date against large regional
] utilities, and Richard A. Clarke, Bush's cyber-security
] adviser, said the intruders "have always, always succeeded."

Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared (TechNews.com)

So lets see here.. I want me a conspiracy theory! Something with Microsoft, Blaster, the Northeast Blackout, Arnold S, Enron, and Bush, all wraped up like a bad Clancy novel.. Give Hillary Clinton a role in it, New York after all, is her chosen territory. Lots of guys with names that start with B, like Blumberg, Bill Richardson, and Bin Laden. And really, the Enron angle has to be played up, noone feels they got enough of that, we all want more.. MORE. Skilling has that same quality to him that all the evil white guys in Jackie Chan movies got.. That _will_ play well on TV.

] Confirming the elimination of the address and the
] unlinking is easy. Entering www.windowsupdate.com in a
] Web browser results in a "The page cannot be found" error
] message within Internet Explorer, for instance. Earlier,
] typing in that address would have brought users to the
] WindowsUpdate site.
]
] The WindowsUpdate service, which is actually at the
] address of windowsupdate.microsoft.com, is still
] functioning. It's this URL, which Windows refers to when
] the Update Windows icon is selected from the operating
] system's Start menu. Users can thus reach WindowsUpdate
] either by typing in the windowsupdate.microsoft.com
] address manually, or as Microsoft recommends, selecting
] the icon from within Windows.

] "The worm's maker could have made it harder to do this,"

] That led him to speculate that the real goal of the worm's
] writer was not to do damage, but only to embarrass
] Microsoft. Other evidence, he said, including the fact
] that the attack was scheduled to begin exactly one month
] after the vulnerability was first disclosed.

InformationWeek | Microsoft Stymies Blaster Attack

] A Senate panel will hold hearings on the recording
] industry's crackdown against online music swappers, the
] chairman said Thursday.
]
] Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) made the announcement in a
] letter to the Recording Industry Association of America.
] He had received information he had requested from the
] group about the campaign, which Coleman has called
] excessive.
]
] The Senate Governmental Affairs' Permanent Subcommittee
] on Investigations is reviewing the group's responses and
] declined to make them available Thursday, as did the
] industry group.
]
] The association announced plans in June to file several
] hundred lawsuits against people suspected of illegally
] sharing songs on the Internet. Copyright laws allow for
] damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song.
]
] In his letter, Coleman said he would look at not just the
] scope of that campaign but also the dangers that
] downloaders face by making their personal information
] available to others. Coleman said he would review
] legislation that would expand criminal penalties for
] downloading music.

The issue is starting to move out of the courts and into Congress.

Senator to hold hearings on recording industry's piracy crackdown

] Heads up, sharers of music, video and software files: If
] a prominent Michigan lawmaker has his way on Capitol
] Hill, you will soon be a felon.
]
] U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Detroit Democrat, is the
] sponsor of the Author, Consumer, and Computer Owner
] Protection and Security (ACCOPS) Act of 2003, which
] declares sharing a single copyrighted file online to be a
] felony.
]
] Because the bill doesn't specifically name the type of
] file, you could theoretically become a felon by copying
] and posting this very column on your Web site. (We frown
] on that sort of thing anyway, but webmasters, be warned.)
]
] Giving fake information to the folks who register domain
] names, the basic Internet Web addresses (such as
] freep.com), would be punishable by up to five years in
] prison and a fine. Using a camcorder to record a movie in
] a theater -- whether you share it or not -- would be a
] federal criminal offense.

HEATHER NEWMAN: 60 million file sharers could face prison, fine

] Documents, tools, and links of interest to technical folks.

] BGP Statistics
] DNS Statistics
] Network Response
] Time Statistics
] Blocked Packet Statistics

This site has some tools that may be interest to other people like myself, who are waiting for some random AS# in NYC to reappear on the Internet.

Welcome to Cymru.COM!

] Swastikas and other Nazi symbols are used as decoration
] in a Hong Kong clothing store, as seen on Saturday, Aug.
] 9, 2003. Israeli and German diplomats have lashed out at
] a Hong Kong fashion company for using swastikas and other
] Nazi party symbols. The Hong Kong-based firm designed a
] range of T-shirts and pants with Nazi symbols and
] launched new decorations this past week in its 14 stores.
] One branch projected Nazi propaganda films on the shop's
] wall. (AP Photo/Anat Givon)

The hot new fashion on the streets of Causeway Bay is ... Nazi Chic?

Um..

lgf: Hong Kong Nazi Chic

] It smells like rotten eggs at best, decomposing flesh at
] worst. It looks like the pods from "Invasion of the Body
] Snatchers."
]
] "It's frightening," said Eileen Masterson. "We can't swim
] because the odor is so horrible and we won't crab here
] because we don't know whether it's safe."

] "In the dead-end lagoons, you normally see vegetative
] material that rots, fish kills or dissolved oxygen
] problems, but I've never seen anything like this," he
] said. "It's strange."

Yep.. The house I grew up in is at the end of a lagoon in Jersey, and boy o' boy does strange shit float up..

Another gelatinous blob, but this one stinks

] The short of it is, their DMCAbot(TM) found
] /distfiles/INFMapPacks123FULL-MAN.zip, picked out the
] words "Pac" and "Man", and is now threatening us under
] the DMCA for distributing a pirated version of Pacman.

In this case they simply asked that the material be taken down, but this is all that it takes to get someone's personal contact information.

A good example of a bad DMCA subpoena